The EU could unilaterally impose mirror clauses on its trade partners, but only if there’s a very strong legal basis for doing so. That’s according to a new report set to be published today by the Brussels-based think tank Europe Jacques Delors — shared exclusively with POLITICO and available here. It sketches out a legal analysis of the feasibility of unilaterally imposing mirror clauses on EU trade partners. 

It comes just two months before the Commission is expected to produce a similar investigation on mirror clauses.

Reminder: If applied, mirror clauses — a concept promoted by the French Council presidency — would oblige the EU’s trade partners to meet the bloc’s own environmental standards in areas like food production and hence raise global green ambition overall, while protecting EU producers from unfair competition. 

10 buts: The report is written by the likes of former EU trade chief Pascal Lamy and Geneviève Pons, who headed up the environmental work of former Commission President Jacques Delors. Lamy and Pons sketch out 10 strict “principles” to make sure mirror clauses are compatible with international law, such as ruling out double standards by making sure the mirror clause can be applied internally too, and ensuring there’s enough science backing up the move. 

But ultimately, mirror clauses are likely to make trade partners upset, and should only be one part of the toolbox to boost farming sustainability, the report says.

Legal logistics: EU lawyers would have to argue a case that protecting animal welfare is a matter of “public morals,” and that boosting environmental standards is for the “common good,” it argues. This could all be made much easier if there was more international agreement on common global food sustainability standards, the report says.